AL KHALID tank breaking down has turned out to be fake as for export orders well Myanmar jets are ready and soon Nigeria will also get JF-17 as for China they have retired F-7 which they were using but you are free to live in your delusional world same kind of mindset was of rulers when Muslims were coming to India they kept saying Delhi is far away and than we saw entire India getting occupied

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bro going by your logic Pakistan was also occupied and converted to Islam....

That doesn't explain the lost decade. We should have at least had a Mig-29 line by then if not the M-2000.

The Soviets had been collaborating with us even before the M-2000 was signed, like SLV-3. It wasn't just the Soviets, after 1983 we started collaborating with everybody. Granted the Soviets were dealing in tech that was a bit more off limits by western standards, even Chakra, but after the collapse we had a free run. The MTCR had ended missile collaboration beyond Prithvi anyway.

Post Mig-29 to Su-30MKI, we had a nearly 15 year gap without any major aircraft orders. How do you explain that away with just politics?

This is what killed M-2000, not the Soviets, not politics. In fact domestic politics played a more crucial role because of the LCA program.

From 1986 onwards, our economy was dead. 1986 and 1987 were both drought years. Then there was Brasstacks and Sri Lanka. M-2000 simply became unaffordable. It costed Rs 5Cr hard cash while the Mig-29 was Rs 2.5Cr with easy payment terms. The fact that we didn't have a Mig-29 line either shows that neither French pressure nor Russian pressure can ever surpass being broke.

From 1991-95, let's forget for a moment that M-2000 was unaffordable. That very likable 13.7% inflation rate is worse than what we had recently. We could have had a M-2000 program at this time, but it didn't make sense then because the aircraft was at the end of its first tier development cycle, a more advanced M-2000-5 was going to become available after 1995 and it was logical and prudent to wait for that version. Even the basic Mig-29 was superior to the older version of M-2000, so why will anyone buy that? This is the same reason why I keep pointing out that we should wait for the Rafale F4 to become available before we start production.

1996-2000, the economy normalized, similar to what's happening today, and we could sign big deals again. ADA promised delivery of M-2000 class LCAs by the year 2000. And the Russians offered the MKI with deep ToT which only mad men would refuse. IAF chose the MKI and M-2000 became unaffordable again.

2001-2005, we ended up having more options like the F-16 and Gripen. So we setup the MRCA program. M-2000 became affordable, but the French killed the program.

The rest is history.

The Soviets may have delayed the M-2000 program, but that delay killed all our other programs also, including potential Soviet programs.
The fact is the lack of money killed all our programs, Russian, French, American, British, it didn't matter who it was. No different from what's happened in the last 5 years.

That doesn't explain the lost decade. We should have at least had a Mig-29 line by then if not the M-2000.

The Soviets had been collaborating with us even before the M-2000 was signed, like SLV-3. It wasn't just the Soviets, after 1983 we started collaborating with everybody. Granted the Soviets were dealing in tech that was a bit more off limits by western standards, even Chakra, but after the collapse we had a free run. The MTCR had ended missile collaboration beyond Prithvi anyway.

Post Mig-29 to Su-30MKI, we had a nearly 15 year gap without any major aircraft orders. How do you explain that away with just politics?

This is what killed M-2000, not the Soviets, not politics. In fact domestic politics played a more crucial role because of the LCA program.

From 1986 onwards, our economy was dead. 1986 and 1987 were both drought years. Then there was Brasstacks and Sri Lanka. M-2000 simply became unaffordable. It costed Rs 5Cr hard cash while the Mig-29 was Rs 2.5Cr with easy payment terms. The fact that we didn't have a Mig-29 line either shows that neither French pressure nor Russian pressure can ever surpass being broke.

From 1991-95, let's forget for a moment that M-2000 was unaffordable. That very likable 13.7% inflation rate is worse than what we had recently. We could have had a M-2000 program at this time, but it didn't make sense then because the aircraft was at the end of its first tier development cycle, a more advanced M-2000-5 was going to become available after 1995 and it was logical and prudent to wait for that version. Even the basic Mig-29 was superior to the older version of M-2000, so why will anyone buy that? This is the same reason why I keep pointing out that we should wait for the Rafale F4 to become available before we start production.

1996-2000, the economy normalized, similar to what's happening today, and we could sign big deals again. ADA promised delivery of M-2000 class LCAs by the year 2000. And the Russians offered the MKI with deep ToT which only mad men would refuse. IAF chose the MKI and M-2000 became unaffordable again.

2001-2005, we ended up having more options like the F-16 and Gripen. So we setup the MRCA program. M-2000 became affordable, but the French killed the program.

The rest is history.

The Soviets may have delayed the M-2000 program, but that delay killed all our other programs also, including potential Soviet programs.
The fact is the lack of money killed all our programs, Russian, French, American, British, it didn't matter who it was. No different from what's happened in the last 5 years.

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Your points are totally valid as a retrospective study. India in 1984 needed US $ 20 Billion investment in its armed forces over a period of 15-20 years to maintain an edge. Army Plan 2000 was the first casualty by 1990.

That is for another day .... because story is of RG losing plot of what IG was planning. That is ... wait till data comes into open domain. Just ... it was unfinished business of 1971 and again what IG had planned for south.

Except for political/strategic deals, like the Virat from your time or Gorky of this time, the govt has stopped interfering in deals that are led by tenders. As the govt said, tenders will be the first priority of the govt. FMS type deals will happen only if tenders are not possible. And the govt won't interfere in tenders, it's all done by committees. The army does paper trials, followed by field trials, then shortlist, then they open bids to determine L1 and a committee takes over negotiations. After the negotiations are over, only then will the govt come in, for either approval or disapproval, which is mostly determined by the funds available.

The fact is there was nothing stopping us from going for M-2000 and Mig-29 production save for funds.

Also, no, funds is something we don't have. And this is the primary reason:

You will notice that the exchange rate was stable in the 60s and 70s, then it got screwed up from the mid 80s to the late 90s. You are confusing politics with money, we simply didn't have money. Today, we are crying about the exchange rate climbing from 45 to 68. Imagine back in the 80s and 90s when it climbed from 10 to 45, that's mindbogglingly insane.

Our currency actually became stable only in 1999. That made pursuing the MKI and MRCA simultaneously possible. Look at the period between 2000 and 2011. During this time our procurement was first class. We bought hundreds of MKI, we bought the Hawk, we bought T-90, P-8, Phalcon, Pilatus, Scorpenes, Arihant, C-17, C-130, Gorky, Akula, Kolkata, Shivalik so on and so forth, the list is endless. From 2000 to 2011 there was no end to all the defence deals we signed.

But the minute the economy started going down, the last 5 years in particular, defence deals dried up. We are still paying for stuff we bought the last decade. What have we bought in the last 5 years, you tell me? We should have at least signed the MMRCA, but we didn't, not enough money to sustain the program. Except for the 36 Rafales and some Apache, there was nothing of note purchased in the last 5 years. We didn't even have money for mid air refuelers. Normally, we should have been able to purchase a Rafale GTG sized deal every year in comparison to our defence budget.

And now, the govt is in fixer-upper mode. They need to bring the economy back on track, once we achieve 8-9% growth, we will go back to the kind of purchases we made back from 2000 onwards. You can expect our exchange rate to be stable or it may even strengthen over the next 10-15 years. Post 2020 you will once against start seeing Rafale GTG sized deals being signed every year, maybe much bigger than the Rafale deal. The pick up in modernization is already starting with the new P-17A and Talwar class frigates deals.

If it wasn't for our economic troubles, we would have had a M-2000 and Mig-29 production line through the 90s instead of having a lost decade. Politics didn't give us the lost decade, our economy did.

Since 2012, the only new weapons we bought are the Apache and Rafale, that's it. The cumulative total over 5 years is barely over $10B. That's peanuts. Compare that to the MKI deal or Scorpene deal which were so much bigger compared to the size of our defence budget.

Economic growth is the main driver of defence expansion, politics is simply a backseat driver.

That time won’t come again as Chinese, Vietnam and Bangladeshi manufacturing are all leaving India behind thanks to India’s own disasters in economic planning

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Noe of what you say can compete India. China can not once again be a low cost producers because of rise in their currency value and improved leaving standard. BD shall fell very much behind India in skills, regulation and financial back up. Vietnam has some chances but it is too small to give India any competition.

Noe of what you say can compete India. China can not once again be a low cost producers because of rise in their currency value and improved leaving standard. BD shall fell very much behind India in skills, regulation and financial back up. Vietnam has some chances but it is too small to give India any competition.